‘‘There’s so much more to it than what I initially thought’’: Stepping into researchers’ shoes with a class activity in a first year psychology survey course

In psychology, it is widely agreed that research methods, although central to the discipline, are particularly challenging to learn and teach, particularly at introductory level. This pilot study explored the potential of embedding a student-conducted research activity in a one-semester undergraduate Introduction to Psychology survey course, with the aims of (a) engaging students with the topic of research methods; (b) developing students’ comprehension and application of research methods concepts; and (c) building students’ ability to link research with theory. The research activity explored shoe ownership, examining gender differences and relationships with age, and linking to theories of gender difference and of consumer identity. The process of carrying out the research and reflecting on it created a contextualized, active learning environment in which students themselves raised many issues that research methods lectures seek to cover. Students also wrote richer assignments than standard first year mid-term essay

Analysis of Historical Evidence of Climate Change in Western and Northern Canada

Analysis of historical climatic evidence, now in progress at the Universities of Manitoba and Winnipeg, are based entirely upon Hudson's Bay Company records. The objective is to thoroughly explore the utility of this valuable historical climatic resource before other potential Canadian historical sources are examined.... This report deals with three major aspects of this research: (1) a study of ice conditions on northern rivers and seas; (2) a reconstruction of dates of first snowfall and first frost in the Hudson Bay region; (3) the development of a computer-coding system for the retrieval and analysis of climatic information in the Hudson's Bay Company post journals

The predictability of wind and virtual temperature profiles for flight and static test operations Final report, Jul. 1, 1965 - Mar. 31, 1966

Predictability of wind and virtual temperature profiles for flight and static test operation

UV solar irradiance in observations and the NRLSSI and SATIRE-S models

Total solar irradiance and UV spectral solar irradiance have been monitored since 1978 through a succession of space missions. This is accompanied by the development of models aimed at replicating solar irradiance by relating the variability to solar magnetic activity. The NRLSSI and SATIRE-S models provide the most comprehensive reconstructions of total and spectral solar irradiance over the period of satellite observation currently available. There is persistent controversy between the various measurements and models in terms of the wavelength dependence of the variation over the solar cycle, with repercussions on our understanding of the influence of UV solar irradiance variability on the stratosphere. We review the measurement and modelling of UV solar irradiance variability over the period of satellite observation. The SATIRE-S reconstruction is consistent with spectral solar irradiance observations where they are reliable. It is also supported by an independent, empirical reconstruction of UV spectral solar irradiance based on UARS/SUSIM measurements from an earlier study. The weaker solar cycle variability produced by NRLSSI between 300 and 400 nm is not evident in any available record. We show that although the method employed to construct NRLSSI is principally sound, reconstructed solar cycle variability is detrimentally affected by the uncertainty in the SSI observations it draws upon in the derivation. Based on our findings, we recommend, when choosing between the two models, the use of SATIRE-S for climate studies

Analysis of B-> \phi K Decays in QCD Factorization

We analyze the decay $B\to \phi K$ within the framework of QCD-improved factorization. We found that although the twist-3 kaon distribution amplitude dominates the spectator interactions, it will suppress the decay rates slightly. The weak annihilation diagrams induced by $(S-P)(S+P)$ penguin operators, which are formally power-suppressed by order $(\Lambda/m_b)^2$, are chirally and logarithmically enhanced. Therefore, these annihilation contributions are not subject to helicity suppression and can be sizable. The predicted branching ratio of $B^-\to\phi K^-$ is $(3.8\pm0.6)\times 10^{-6}$ in the absence of annihilation contributions and it becomes $(4.3^{+3.0}_{-1.4})\times 10^{-6}$ when annihilation effects are taken into account. The prediction is consistent with CLEO and BaBar data but smaller than the BELLE result.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures. A major change for the presentation of branching-ratio predictions. Experimental data are update

Identical Bands in Superdeformed Nuclei: A Relativistic Description

Relativistic Mean Field Theory in the rotating frame is used to describe superdeformed nuclei. Nuclear currents and the resulting spatial components of the vector meson fields are fully taken into account. Identical bands in neighboring Rare Earth nuclei are investigated and excellent agreement with recent experimental data is observed.Comment: 11 pages (Latex) and 4 figures (available upon request) TUM-ITP-Ko93/

Non-existence of Skyrmion-Skyrmion and Skyrmion-anti-Skyrmion static equilibria

We consider classical static Skyrmion-anti-Skyrmion and Skyrmion-Skyrmion configurations, symmetric with respect to a reflection plane, or symmetric up to a $G$-parity transformation respectively. We show that the stress tensor component completely normal to the reflection plane, and hence its integral over the plane, is negative definite or positive definite respectively. Classical Skyrmions always repel classical Skyrmions and classical Skyrmions always attract classical anti-Skyrmions and thus no static equilibrium, whether stable or unstable, is possible in either case. No other symmetry assumption is made and so our results also apply to multi-Skyrmion configurations. Our results are consistent with existing analyses of Skyrmion forces at large separation, and with numerical results on Skymion-anti-Skyrmion configurations in the literature which admit a different reflection symmetry. They also hold for the massive Skyrme model. We also point out that reflection symmetric self-gravitating Skyrmions or black holes with Skyrmion hair cannot rest in symmetric equilibrium with self-gravitating anti-Skyrmions.Comment: v2 Typos corrected, refs added. v3 Journal versio

On Binary Matroid Minors and Applications to Data Storage over Small Fields

Locally repairable codes for distributed storage systems have gained a lot of interest recently, and various constructions can be found in the literature. However, most of the constructions result in either large field sizes and hence too high computational complexity for practical implementation, or in low rates translating into waste of the available storage space. In this paper we address this issue by developing theory towards code existence and design over a given field. This is done via exploiting recently established connections between linear locally repairable codes and matroids, and using matroid-theoretic characterisations of linearity over small fields. In particular, nonexistence can be shown by finding certain forbidden uniform minors within the lattice of cyclic flats. It is shown that the lattice of cyclic flats of binary matroids have additional structure that significantly restricts the possible locality properties of $\mathbb{F}_{2}$-linear storage codes. Moreover, a collection of criteria for detecting uniform minors from the lattice of cyclic flats of a given matroid is given, which is interesting in its own right.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figure